Adventure is Not a Four Letter Word

No, it wasn’t a war zone, I wasn’t being mugged, in fact, there was no conflict at all. I was simply strolling through a local fruit market, when all of a sudden, I was in desperate need of assistance.

Some people see a white light. Some see nothing at all. Me? I dreamt of jagged snow-capped mountains andvast sunburnt deserts, anything but the melons and tomatoes all staring, even laughing, at my predicament.

It was surreal; this wasn’t meant to happen. I’m (relatively) young. I’m (relatively) fit. I eat (relatively) well. And I love to travel. So why, all of a sudden, was I perishing, lonely, a victim, without warning, in a foreign land, being absolutely bored to my imminent death?

You see, I love travel, but not all travel. Some of it bores me beyond tears. Maybe that’s shallow, maybe it’s close-minded, maybe I’m an impostor, but whatever it is, this latest fruit market episode made me think deeply.

I especially thought about the word ‘adventure’, and how it relates to travel. For some reason, I always thought of adventure as an activity that involved physical exertion. You know, rafting, rock climbing, parasailing, etc. But then I realised something profound.

Adventure isn’t physical at all; it’s 100% mental.

Think about it for a moment. Travel isn’t adventurous unless it involves exploring something unknown. And at its core, exploring the unknown involves problem solving, decision making, route building… all mental tasks.

This was the problem with the fruit market: there was no adventure. Not because it wasn’t physically strenuous, but because it was mostly ‘known’. It wasn’t a fruit market in Morocco, Mali or Mongolia, it was Canada. And as lovely as Canada is, well, the fruit is just fruit. No one offered me three camels in exchange for Lauren and there weren’t any blue bananas in sight.

I stood there a little longer, staring at the throngs of people mesmerized by otherwise ordinary fruit,trying to make sense of it all. Was I just rationalizing some other desperation. Did I wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Am I getting old and less tolerant? Well, who knows, but it sure had something to do with adventure.

It came to me that adventure isn’t just a label; it’s a curiosity that’s executed by exploration. And that’s why, all of a sudden, I questioned my love of travel in that fruit market on such a glorious summer day. Because there was no curiosity, and so there was no exploration. Everything, for the most part, was known. I simply wasn’t traveling.

So at least for me I figured adventure is a basic human need. (If I had Maslow‘s number, maybe I’d call and ask him to add it to his hierarchy.) But luckily, the world is vast, there’s a lot to discover, and Globetrooper has many adventurous trips to satiate this insatiable appetite.